You will know that it's warm inside
by waywardcherry
Summary: Part 1 of the "In the cold, cold night" series for Quitt Week. Quinn and Brittany (and the cat from hell) housesit for Rachel and Santana in NYC.


**AN:** Little ficlet for Quitt Week, with established Quitt and Pezberry, about 8 years from now.

..

"This tape won't be enough," Quinn says as she holds the edge of the bubble wrap against the cold window, using the last piece of tape over the jagged glass. Every now and then, she switches hands and blows on her numb fingers—wearing gloves for this task was just proving to be harder and be taking longer. And one glance to the floor and, great, the demon cat is tearing her precious gloves apart. Some would say 'count to ten', but getting to 200 woulnd't help her at all. She takes a deep breath and can actually _see_ it in front of her as she exhales. "This is ridiculous," she mutters. "_Britt_!"

Quinn can hear some muffled answer two rooms away—for their budget and uncertain career choices, Rachel and Santana live in a surprisingly large apartment midtown—and starts to wonder if Brittany fell into a crate of wrapping paper and strings and whatever the hell else Rachel uses for festivities. (Rachel _would_ own such a thing.) So far, they've found a roll of bubble wrap in a cabinet under the kitchen sink, scissors, a small roll of tape and an empty box of Froot Loops that they flattened to help hold the structure up.

They had no use for the rope and handcuffs, because—really, Santana? In the _kitchen_?

The demon cat, the most recent spawn of Lord Tubbington (she swears that beast will outlive them all), decides now to sit on the coffee table and admire the absolute mess he's created. For some unknown reason, an invisible fuse got lit up his ass and he started running around every surface, knocking over everything in sight. One of the side table's lamps flew violently into the living room window, breaking a hole in the glass, but, thankfully, staying inside—she didn't want a random passer-by's death-by-lamp on their conscience for eternity. Dealing with Santana's bitching will be bad enough. After all, it's past midnight and they don't know the ins and outs of the city to find an emergency repairman. So bubble wrap it is. And coats and boots, hats and scarves to brave the Fortress of Solitude the apartment has become, since the heat wasn't able to handle it.

The problem is they are now out of resources to cover the entirety of the damage, and Brittany went into the bedroom awhile ago to scavenge for more supplies. Quinn's patience is about ready run out as well. "Brittany, come _on_, I'm freezing!" She glances down and the demon cat wags his tail, certainly plotting her death. "And this thing is looking at me funny."

Brittany slowly backs into the room, dragging an enormous trunk inch by inch across the floor. The thing looks like it outweighs them both and she won't be surprised if one day it falls through a whole in the ground down the building. She lets go of the tip of bubble wrap she was holding in place, inviting an icy gush of wind and some snowflakes in, and rushes to her girlfriend's side. "Britt, you're gonna strain your back."

Brittany blows one of the earflaps of her furry green hat out of her eyes and looks up at Quinn, cheeks all red from the cold and the effort. "I couldn't grab everything, so I emptied their medicine cabinet in here as well, of course it's heavy."

"Shouldn't you at least have brought in one at a time?"

Brittany rolls her eyes. "You say that _now_."

"Well, leave it here, at least it's warmer in here," she says as they stand in the threshold of the hallway. "At least we won't get back to Chicago with you in a wheelchair." As Brittany mutters "That's mean", she stretches her back as far as humanly possible and Quinn just watches—she'll never not be amazed at how crazy flexible this girl is. When she slacks her arms back to the sides of her body and rolls her neck, they both look at the path the trunk carved onto the carpet all the way from the bedroom. "Jesus, do they have a body in here?"

"No, I checked." They've known each other all their lives and been together the past four years, Quinn knows better than to question her at this point. "There's a bunch of blankets and trophies, books and stuff. I found a roll of wrapping paper but no tape, though."

"Couldn't you have just brought in the wrapping paper, then?"

"You sounded impatient," Brittany says, looking straight into her eyes. "And I was afraid Kiwi was doing something stupid again, so." And now Quinn just feels bad. "Besides, I didn't get to look into all of it. Feels like I'm gonna fall into Narnia or something."

Brittany's not wrong. She can easily picture Rachel hiding in that thing as a child without having to so much as bend her knees. She knew about its existence from Santana, about the whole drama with Rachel over who would get to live in their apartment, _them_ or the trunk. They didn't speak for a week and Quinn had to play couple's therapist over Rachel's childhood relic. ("Santana, ifworse comes to worst, you could use that as a stool for when you need to reach for the knives Rachel hides from you.") ("Rachel, _shut up_. Invest in a sensible dresser, for the love of God.")

"And why did you dump their medicines in here, I mean…"

"Well," Brittany says as she scratches the back of her neck. "I looked a lot, opened drawers and everything, but I couldn't find tape. But there's a lot of band-aid in there, so I figured it should do."

That isn't bad logic. However, upon further analysis, the window will end up looking like Broadway threw up on it. There are several boxes of the special Pride edition of the neon band-aids in every color of the rainbow, novelty ones with the characters from _Wicked_, _Phantom_, _Anything_ _Goes_ and _Newsies_. (She hates Rachel for the fact that she even knows that at first glance; constant exposure for about ten years probably caused more damage than she cares to admit.) "But—what if these are limited edition?" She winces just for considering that. _Damn you_, Rachel. And damn Santana as well, she'll have Quinn's head if she dares to upset her girl. Damn everyone! Damn the cat, damn this horrible winter.

"Babe?"

"Huh?"

"You spaced out," Britt says softly, twirling her hat's pompoms below her chin. "I said Santana will be mad if we leave a frozen cat on her carpet." When she puts it _that _way… "He's not evil, Quinn. He's misunderstood."

"How so? He ruins everything, but still walks around like he owns the damn place."

"Like you."

She blinks. "_Excuse_ me?"

"Well, a lot of the things you've always done seem to other people like you just wanna cause damage and you walk away because they can't see it the way you do." All of a sudden, a knife is being lodged in her gut and twisted. "But I do. You mean well. Not always, but most of the time." It helps. A _little_. What is it with this conversation in the middle of the hallway, when they're about to freeze to death?

"Britt, can we not? We have a hole to cover and we can't check into a hotel because of—" She gestures towards the cat.

"Q."

"What?"

"Kiwi. I named him after you. Q for short."

And when she thinks the conversation can't get any weirder… in a sort-of-nice way. This lump that rises in her throat doesn't help things, either. "Let's just do this, grab the stuff." Brittany just smiles and nods, grabbing an armful of blankets and band-aid boxes, while Quinn takes a pair of mittens, more blankets and the rolled up wrapping paper. They both hiss at the slap of cold wind as they round the couch and approach the window. She almost snorts as she sees the cat pawing at his own ears to get rid of snowflakes, which now coat the windowsill and the general area around it.

There are just so many ways she can picture getting their asses handed to them by Santana while Rachel _wails_ around the apartment picking up the pieces that she just has to take a moment to sigh.

"Yeah, it's bad," Brittany mumbles next to her, assessing the damage. Upon hearing her voice, the cat hops across the coffee table and into her arms, immediately snuggling under the flaps of her hat.

Well. She can't deny that's exactly that she'd do if she were that size and can't help but smile.

..

It looks absolutely horrendous.

It's a patchwork of bubble wrap, tinfoil and gold-star wrapping paper, all stuck together with multiple colors and Broadway faces and a framed autographed picture of Florence Welch ("To Santana." That's all it says. And Santana cried for hours that day.) propped up against the whole thing for support. It hasn't done a perfect job of shielding them from the cold, but at least it doesn't block the snowy view by much. New York looks incredible covered in white.

Quinn's sitting up on the couch under a few hundred layers of blankets and pulls her hat a little lower over her ears (Rachel's mittens were a godsend). She nearly jumps out of her skin when the demon—_Kiwi_'s head pops up from behind her bent knees. It seems like he climbed the blankets from the other side of the couch and is now looking at her. She doesn't know what to do with him. At least Lord Tubbington has the decency to be very honest about their mutual disdain and keep his distance. She's never had a puppy or a kitten or any kind of pet you had to interact with. She's not Brittany, nurturing towards all living things. Actually, she had trouble with the idea of letting Britt take a pet home in the first place because they're hardly ever there—and she likes to joke that Britt is her puppy on Red Bull, she doesn't need another.

Kiwi's grey eyes stare intently into her own and it's making her very uneasy. Thankfully, Britt arrives with their mugs of hot cocoa (mini marshmallows and cinnamon for Britt, nonfat for her), carefully reclaiming her spot against the arm of the couch, her long legs wrapping around Quinn on either side under the blankets and pulling her closer. Quinn rests her back against her girlfriend and tips her head up for a kiss that lasts a little longer than it should when they have hot beverages to balance in precarious conditions. "Thank you," she says with a final peck and takes a careful sip—burning her tongue is out of the question when they still have this place for themselves for the next four days (or however long it takes for Santana to leave Rachel alone and let her put some clothes on and _walk_—she hates that she's privy to these details—out of the cabin they got for their seventh anniversary up in Vermont). It tastes a little bit like plastic. _Sweet_ plastic. "Did you put something different in it?"

"Well, they didn't have any of that skim milk you like, but there was nonfat written on this carton of Silk and I figured it wasn't fabric because it came in a carton. I poured a little in the sink and it was white, so."

She feels Brittany shrug and smiles a little. At least the funny taste is soy, not moisturizer. (It's happened—don't ask.) "Rachel's gonna kill you."

"They said we could use everything. I even shared a can of Burn with Q before, if they're gonna get mad about _that_—"

Quinn turns around in the blankets. "You gave Burn to the cat."

"Yes?"

"You gave _Burn_ to the _cat_."

"Why are you repeating that? I just said yes."

She could get mad. She could scream. She could even throw a hot drink on her own face in frustration. But what they have is a stupidly festive broken window, hot cocoas, a sleepy kitten and the white silence from the snowfall. And each other. Quinn grabs both their mugs and places them on the coffee table, furthering Britt's confusion. She grabs both sides of her girlfriend's face and starts laughing as she leans down to kiss her.

"You do realize that's why he went insane and broke the window, right?"

Britt, bless her little heart, keeps a furrow on her brow as she grabs both of Quinn's thighs straddling her lap and pulls her closer. "Well. You said he couldn't have sugar, so I pulled him out of the Froot Loops box under the sink and gave him the drink to wash it down, I thought some reverse magic would happen."

By now Quinn's having a giggle fit against Brittany's mouth and rests her forehead on the nape of her neck to try and breathe. "They are going to _murder_ us, might as well enjoy our last few days on Earth."

Even with a pout, Britt manages to say, "Any ideas?"

"Several.


End file.
